


Loving You in Color

by shipatfirstsight



Series: Anidala Drabbles [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon deaths, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Padmé and Anakin reunited in the Force, Soulmates, True Love, True Love AU-seeing color for the first time, and then fluff again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-26
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-05-09 14:32:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5543435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipatfirstsight/pseuds/shipatfirstsight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anakin starts to see in color the first time he meets Padmé.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Loving You in Color

**Author's Note:**

> “When we are in love we seem to ourselves quite different from what we were before.”  
> — Blaise Pascal

Anakin Skywalker doesn’t know what his mother is talking about when she points out colors. His world is dull—grays and blacks and whites. He suspects it would be easier to accept the dullness if Shmi hadn’t told him that other colors existed. 

“I didn’t always see the colors, Ani,” she whispers to him one night, his eyes fighting off sleep. “Not until the day you were born anyway. You don’t see colors until you find love.”

“But I love you, mom,” he says in sleepy protest.

She smiles sadly at him and whispers, “I know. Everyone has one true love, though. One love that makes you see color. It’s different for everyone. You’ll find it when you’re older.”

He doesn’t want to wait to be older, though, he wants to know now. Then she walks into Watto’s shop. 

His world isn’t flooded with color—not like his mom always talked about how suddenly seeing every color with perfect brilliance the moment she saw him. He sees the dull edge of them, colors he’s never seen before. The world isn’t dull anymore; it’s just muted. “Are you an angel?” he asks her, because what else could she be? (He’s never seen any one else prettier in his life, he knows he’ll never see any one else as beautiful again, and he’s glad she’s the one who makes him see color for the first time). 

Padmé. Even her name is beautiful. He lets it roll off his tongue over and over before he falls asleep that night, remembering the color of his eyes. (One day, he promises himself as he drifts to sleep, one day he’ll see the color as they were meant to be seen). 

In the morning, he tells asks his mom, “What colors are the sunrise?” They’re so beautiful—he doesn’t know how he could have missed so much, and he wants a name for them.

She doesn’t answer, just looks at him sadly. 

“Mom?” he prods.

“Get to work, Ani,” is all she says though. (What she doesn’t say is that she already knows she’s lost him, whether or not he leaves with this people, he’s not just hers anymore).

The longer he spends with Padmé, the sharper the colors become. They’re still muted, though (he doesn’t know how he knows, but the world still looks cloudy). He’s glad that the first time he gets to see the galaxy, gets to leave the only planet he’s ever known, he can see colors, even if its only partially. 

But he and Padmé were perhaps always meant to be separated. They’re destined for two different things—he’s going to be a Jedi and she has a duty to her people. 

“Don’t forget me,” he begs as they hug goodbye (she insisted on a private goodbye, and he hopes she feels the same way about him as he does about her). 

“I’ll never forget you,” she promises, and reaches to pull out the necklace he carved for her. He hadn’t thought she would actually wear it, but there it is on her neck under her ceremonial garb. 

The longer he is away from her, the duller the world becomes again. The colors start to slip away, black and white returning, though slower than it took for him to be able to see them.

By the time they’re reunited, ten years later, his world is completely black and white and gray. He steps into her apartment, sees her, and breathes a sigh of relief. His world feels more complete again, awash in muted colors. (Still just a crush, he knows now; he’s researched this phenomenon in his spare time. He’s not in love with her yet). 

When he kisses her for the first time on the lake in Naboo for one blinding moment afterward he sees the world in perfect color—every inch of it. It’s gone as suddenly as it came, but still it had been there and all because of Padmé. 

Again, as when he was nine, the longer he spends with her the sharper the world becomes. It’s stronger this time, brighter. He knows this is heading toward love, but it’s only him. Padmé doesn’t feel the same about him as he does about her. He resolves to leave her alone, steals himself with the knowledge that his world will go dark again and this time forever. 

(He doesn’t know that Padmé has slowly, since they’ve been reunited, been seeing colors, seeping into her life for the first time; for the first time she’s truly able to appreciate the beauty of her home-world. She’s able to see the color of Anakin’s eyes. She knows it’s him doing this to her; she’s heard her parents and her sister talk enough about seeing colors when they fell in love. She tries to push the feelings away, push the colors away).

When his mother lays dying in his arms, he watches as the world looses color as his mother looses her life. (The pain is too much, the suffering too much; it takes over the budding love and drives the color away). All he can see is red. 

Later, when Padmé holds him and comforts him, the colors come back. He doesn’t feel like he deserves them anymore.  
They go to rescue Obi Wan, both of them knowing this is a suicide mission. Their hands brush as they fly the ship together, every touch brightening the colors he sees into focus. 

When they’re captured, the fear nearly drives the colors away again. Not for himself, not in his line of work; he knows the risks. Always for her, though, he is afraid. Afraid of losing her from the world and losing how beautiful it is with her in his life. 

(It scares him that his anger and his fear are stronger than the love he feels).

Padmé tells him that she loves him, “I truly, deeply love you, and I want you to know before we die.” The words are whispered, and she leans toward him, but before he closes his eyes, before their lips touch, he lets the love he’s felt for her flood him and the world comes into perfect clarity.

He proposes to her in a private moment after the battle is over. “I don’t want to be without you again,” he says. “Marry me?” It’s tentative—he always feels tentative around her. Unsure of if her feelings are the same as his.

Her face breaks into a smile—the one he knows is reserved for him—before she answers. “Of course.”

They are married in the most beautiful place in the galaxy (the gold of his new hand stings his eyes when it catches the light). Every color is perfect, as she is. 

The colors don’t go away. No matter how far into the galaxy he is taken from her, the colors remain. It’s a comfort; he knows she’s alive, at least. 

“Do you see them too?” he asks when they’re together again.

“See what?” she asks in between the kisses she’s placing over every inch of his face.

“The colors.”

She pulls back to look at him, and his heart fills with dread for the no he knows is coming. “Ever since the first time you kissed me.”

He’s never heard anything more wonderful.

The universe feels perfect when he’s with her—complete. Even though he always sees colors now, they’re brought into focus when they are together. The colors are at their most beautiful in those moments. 

Until its not anymore. 

Mustafar is the worst place in the galaxy he decides much, much later. All he can see is red. 

(Red is the worst color; it brings rage and destruction….Death). 

He hurts the one person he promised to always protect, and then Obi Wan wrecks his body. “I love you, Anakin!” Obi Wan shouts down at him (Anakin wonders past the pain, years later, just what that meant for him to say). 

He knows Padmé is still alive though (he sees the dull edge of other colors, though the rage overpowers everything). 

Then Sidious puts him in a cage of armor and machine. He sees colors, but they look unnatural, nothing like they looked…before. Then his master tells him that Padmé is dead (and its his fault; why is it his fault? He would have fought anything that moved against her, even death itself, but he could not seem to stop himself. He hates himself. He can’t bring himself to think of her name anymore after that because it only brings more pain, a reminder of what could have been if only…) 

His eyes, when he is in his chamber and free to remove his mask, can only make out black and white and gray in everything except his new lightsaber. 

Red is always clear. 

(Twenty years go by. He had been wrong when he was younger. It was hard to live without something when you had known how sweet life could be with that thing. Her and colors and their children that he would never get to meet, ripped from him because of his choices. That was the worst of it, having to live with the consequences of his choices forever).

When he dies doing the best thing he’s done in twenty years (saving their son, the pure faith he has in Anakin all the evidence Anakin needs to know that Luke is her son) he doesn’t hope to be able to see colors in the next life. He doesn’t deserve it. 

She is there to meet him though, a small smile on her face. “What took you so long?” She asks, teasing in her voice. Love in her voice.

So he lets himself feel the love he’d pushed away for twenty years if only to escape the pain. “Padmé,” he murmurs, and it’s a prayer and a cry of adoration all at once. 

And he can see in color again.


End file.
